1982 Fort Lauderdale Strikers Media Guide from the North American Soccer League

Fort Lauderdale Strikers (1977-1983)

North American Soccer League (1977-1983)

Tombstone

Born: December 21, 1976 – The Miami Toros relocate to Fort Lauderdale, FL
Moved: November 30, 1983 (Minnesota Strikers)1Newman, Mark. “Striker era softly ends”. The Herald (Miami, FL). December 1, 1983

First Game: April 9, 1977 (W 2-1 vs. St. Louis Stars)
Last Game
: September 10, 1983 (L 4-2 vs. Tulsa Roughnecks)

Soccer Bowl Championships: None
NASL Indoor Championships: None

Stadia

Outdoor Soccer:

Lockhart Stadium (19,020)21983 Official North American Soccer League Guide
Opened: 1959
Demolished: 2019

Indoor Soccer:

1979-80: West Palm Beach Auditorium
Opened: 1965

1980-81: Hollywood Sportatorium (14,500)
Opened: 1969
Demolished: 1993

Marketing

Team Colors: Red, Yellow & Black31983 Official North American Soccer League Guide

Cheerleaders: Strikers Psychers

Television:

  • 1982: WPLG (ABC Channel 10 – 5 games)
  • 1982: ON-TV Subscription Television (4 games)

Television Broadcasters:

  • 1982 (WPLG): Chuck Dowdle, Frank Forte & Garo Yepremian
  • 1982 (ON-TV): Arnie Warren & David Irving

Radio:

  • 1982: WIOD (610 AM) & WEAT (850 AM)

Radio Broadcasters:

  • 1977-1982: Rick Weaver

Ownership

 

OUR FAVORITE STUFF

Strikers Logo T-Shirt

Striker Likers …. Unite! 
No disrespect to Inter Miami CF, but until they win a MLS CUP, the late 70’s Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the NASL remain the undisputed top dogs of South Florida soccer. This was the era when Gerd Muller, George Best, Ray Hudson and Teofilo Cubillas roamed the turf at Lockhart Stadium and the Strikers challenged the mighty Cosmos for Soccer Bowl glory!  
This Strikers tee is also available in women’s scoop neck, V-neck and racerback tank styles  at Old School Shirts!

 

When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support

 

Background

The original Fort Lauderdale Strikers were an entertaining soccer club that made their home for seven seasons in South Florida. Fort Lauderdale aggressively sought Major League sports during the mid-1970’s. The city nearly poached the NBA’s Buffalo Braves in 1976 and courted several World Hockey Association clubs to play at the crummy Hollywood Sportatorium. But ultimately soccer was the game that alighted in Broward County in 1977. And it was the 7,800-seat city-owned Lockhart Stadium, rather than the oft-jilted Sportatorium, that would host the city’s first Major pro sports franchise.

The club originally formed in 1967 as the lower-division Washington Darts of the American Soccer League. The franchise joined the top-tier North American Soccer League in 1970 and moved to Miami in 1972. Joe Robbie, owner of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins acquired controlling interest in the team during the Miami years. Robbie’s wife Elizabeth emerged as the ownership face of the club. The team couldn’t draw in Miami and made the move to Fort Lauderdale in December 1976.

Fort Lauderdale Teofilo Cubillas on the cover of a Fort Lauderdale Strikers program from the North American Soccer League

International Superstars

During the late 70’s, the Strikers imported a slew of international stars to South Florida, including World Cup heroes Gordon Banks (England ’66), Gerd Muller (West Germany ’70 & ’74) and Teofilo Cubillas (Peru). George Best, the former Manchester United superstar and 1968 European Footballer of the Year, suited up for the Strikers in 1978 and 1979.

The Strikers were superb on the field, posting winning campaigns every year from 1977 to 1982. The club advanced to the Soccer Bowl final in 1980, losing 3-0 to the New York Cosmos before 50,768 fans at Washington D.C.’s RFK Stadium and a national TV audience on ABC Sports. The Strikers also advanced to the playoff semi-finals in 1978, 1981 and 1982.

The club’s on-field success played out against continual behind the scenes turmoil. In October 1978, the Robbie family hired for NHL hockey player and minor league hockey exec Bob Lemieux as General Manager. One of Lemieux’s first moves was to fire Strikers’ coach Ron Newman, the NASL’s all-time winningest. Newman was 52-34 over three years in Fort Lauderdale with three consecutive playoff appearances. Newman’s response was to round up investors and drop a rival team, the 2nd division Miami Americans, right into the Strikers back yard in the spring of 1980. (The Americans flopped miserably and Newman was back in the NASL with San Diego by the midway point of the 1980 season).

Gerd Muller of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on the cover of a July 1980 Soccer Digest Magazine

Soccer Bowl ’80

Former Dutch national team star Cor Van Der Hart replaced Newman in 1980. The Strikers endured a strife-torn 1980 season. Van Der Hart fought with Lemieux. Die hard fans – “Striker Likers” – toted signs to Lockhart demanding both men be fired. Van Der Hart antagonized the club’s South American players in particular. Chilean national team midfielder Eduardo Bonvallet accused his coach of stealing $30,000 from him.

Nevertheless, the Strikers roared through the playoffs, including a dramatic defeat of Ron Newman’s San Diego Sockers in a two-leg semi-final series. Fort Lauderdale would meet the mighty New York Cosmos in Soccer Bowl ’80 on September 21, 1980. The match was a debacle. Brazilian defender Francisco Marinho, informed by Van Der Hart that he would not start, changed into street clothers and sat out the match. German star Gerd Muller pulled a thigh muscle and left the scoreless match shortly before halftime. The Cosmos poured in three goals in the second half for a 3-0 rout. Despite the Soccer Bowl run and record attendance, the Robbies fired both General Manager Bob Lemieux and Cor Van Der Hart within months of the Cosmos loss.

Fort Lauderdale Strikers vs. New York Cosmos Soccer Bowl 1980 program from the North American Soccer League

Stadium & Arena Issues

The Robbies pushed for continual upgrades to Lockhart Stadium. The city complied in the early years, adding 10,500 seats in a series of three renovations between 1977 and 1979. By 1979, Lockart seated over 19,000 fans. Attendance peaked at 14,279 fans per match during the Soccer Bowl season of 1980. The club continued to push for more enhancements, but the city resisted further improvements as crowds dwindled in the early 1980’s.

The Strikers also played in the NASL’s wintertime indoor league from 1979 to 1981. The club never took the indoor season seriously. Top foreign stars like Muller and Cubillas skipped out. There was also no major indoor arena in South Florida until the construction of Miami Arena in 1988. The Strikers played a 5-match indoor schedule at the 4,400-seat West Palm Beach Auditorium in 1979-80. The following winter, the team set up shop at the Hollywood Sportatorium. At one point, the Strikers lost an NASL record 19 consecutive indoor matches between 1979 and 1981. The club at out the 1981-82 and 1983-84 NASL indoor seasons altogether, citing lack of a proper arena.

June 1981 Soccer Digest magazine with Teofilo Cubillas of the Fort Lauderdale Strikers on the cover.

Move To Minneapolis & Aftermath

Between 1980 and 1983 the NASL shrunk from 24 to 12 clubs. Strikers attendance dropped 40% over the same period and the club endured its first losing season in 1983. On the final day of November 1983, Elizabeth Robbie announced that the club was move to Minneapolis for the 1984 NASL season.

E. Clay Shaw was the mayor of Fort Lauderdale when the Strikers arrived in 1976. By 1983, he was a U.S. congressman. He delivered a fitting epitaph for the Strikers – and the NASL as a whole – upon the team’s departure for Minnesota.

“Soccer is something that eight years ago appeared to be something which was going to be much bigger in the U.S. than it is today,” Shaw told Denise Stinson of The Fort Lauderdale News on December 1, 1983. “But it has not lived up to the expectations we had originally thought.”

The NASL folded after the 1984 season. The Minnesota Strikers managed to play on for several more seasons by embracing the indoor game and joining the Major Indoor Soccer League in 1984. The Robbie family finally folded the club in June of 1988.

Back in Fort Lauderdale, there have been several attempts to reincarnate the Strikers. Members of the Robbie family were involved in both the 1988-1994 Strikers club in the American Professional Soccer League and the 2011-2016 Strikers revival.

 

Trivia

Fort Lauderdale Striker Psychers

The club’s cheerleading squad was known as the “Strikers Psychers”.

 

Fort Lauderdale Strikers Shop

Editor's Pick

Rock n' Roll Soccer

The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League

by Ian Plenderleith

The North American Soccer League – at its peak in the late 1970s – presented soccer as performance, played by men with a bent for flair, hair and glamour. More than just Pelé and the New York Cosmos, it lured the biggest names of the world game like Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, Eusebio, Gerd Müller and George Best to play the sport as it was meant to be played-without inhibition, to please the fans.

The first complete look at the ambitious, star-studded NASL, Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer reveals how this precursor to modern soccer laid the foundations for the sport’s tremendous popularity in America today. 

 

When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

 

 

 

Fort Lauderdale Strikers Video

The Strikers face the New York Cosmos in Soccer Bowl ’80 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. ABC Sports broadcast.

 

 

In Memoriam

Long-time Striker Colin Fowles (Strikers ’77-’83) was killed by stray gunfire during a pick-up soccer game in Dade County on August 29, 1985. He was 32 years old.

Owner Elizabeth Robbie passed on November 5, 1991 at age 69. Sun-Sentinel obituary.

Midfielder Keith Weller (Strikers ’80-’83) died of cancer on November 12, 2004. Weller was 58.

George Best (Strikers ’78-’79) died on November 25, 2005 at age 59 after decade of alcohol abuse and liver problems. New York Times obituary.

Head Coach Cor Van Der Hart, who led the team to their only Soccer Bowl appearance in 1980, passed away on December 12, 2006 at age 78.

Goalkeeper Jan Van Beveren (Strikers ’80-’83) died on June 26, 2011. The former Dutch international was 63 years old. New York Times obituary.

Brazilian World Cup veteran Francisco Marinho (Strikers ’80) died of a digestive hemorrhage on May 31, 2014 at 62 years old.

Chilean midfielder Eduardo Bonvallet (Strikers ’80) took his own life at age 60 on September 18, 2015 after reportedly suffering from depression.

Gerd Muller (Strikers ’79-’81), the great former Bayern Munich star, passed away on August 15, 2021 at the age of 75 in his native Germany. New York Times obituary.

 

Downloads

4-9-1980 Strikers vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes

4-9-1980 Fort Lauderdale Strikers vs New York Cosmos Game Notes

 

6-30-1979 Strikers vs. Vancouver Whitecaps Roster

5-23-1982 Strikers vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes

5-3-1983 – Strikers Sign 1980 NASL MVP Roger Davies Press Release

5-3-1983 Strikers vs. New York Cosmos Game Notes

 

Links

North American Soccer League Media Guides

North American Soccer League Programs

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Comments

3 Responses

  1. Teo Cubillas and the rangy keeper, Jan Van Beveren, WERE the Strikers. I’m not even a soccer fan but I was there for at least a dozen games. Van Beveren was the spine of those teams.

    “Van Beveren played 32 caps for the Netherlands national team. Although a first choice in the late sixties, his international career was cut short due to a long feud with Johan Cruyff. It resulted in Van Beveren missing the 1974 World Cup, and retiring from international football in 1977.”

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